Alan Jones outside court in December 2024. His home was searched in November 2024 after an eight-month investigation into reports of historical sexual abuse. Photograph: Roni Bintang/Getty ImagesAlan Jones outside court in December 2024. His home was searched in November 2024 after an eight-month investigation into reports of historical sexual abuse. Photograph: Roni Bintang/Getty ImagesAlan Jones claims invalid warrants, police impropriety and ‘willy-nilly’ search in sex abuse investigationBroadcaster’s lawyers say NSW police should reveal which officers accessed or downloaded material from Jones’s phone
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Police stand accused of engaging in impropriety when raiding the home of former shock jock Alan Jones during a sexual assault investigation.
Officers searched the 85-year-old’s Sydney home in November 2024 after an eight-month investigation into reports of historical sexual abuse.
On Tuesday, his lawyers told Sydney’s Downing Centre local court the NSW police should reveal which officers accessed or downloaded material from his phone and through intercepted calls, claiming the search warrants could be invalid.
“The phone was seized and the evidence to date suggests it was then searched willy-nilly,” his barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC said.
On its face the search warrant was “bad”, she continued, partly because it referred to Jones being accused of sexual intercourse without consent among other offences.
Lawyer for Alan Jones tells court witnesses could clear broadcaster’s name of sexual abuse allegationsRead moreThese were not the charges the radio veteran was eventually hit with, Bashir argued.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailJones has pleaded not guilty to 25 charges of indecent assault and two charges of sexual touching against nine alleged victims over nearly two decades when he ruled the airwaves.
Bashir flagged her client might apply to either temporarily or permanently halt the proceedings, or argue certain evidence be tossed because it was obtained unlawfully.
Representing the NSW police commissioner, barrister Peter Singleton said there was no evidence officers had engaged in any sort of impropriety or that the warrant itself was invalid.
He said the court should not order the release of documents merely to allow Jones’s defence team to see if there was anything there to support a future bid to put the case on ice.
“It is fishing to find out whether or not there is a case,” he told Judge Glenn Walsh.
Jones will contest the allegations in a four-month-long hearing starting in August.
His defence team has been fighting to gain access to documents from police as well as the complainants in the matter.
In March, Bashir told the court they were still awaiting “oodles of material” to be produced.
Jones is accused of sexual misconduct against nine complainants between 2003 and 2020, both in private and in public places such as restaurants and at high-profile events.
The charges, which Jones has claimed are “all either baseless or they distort the truth”, followed his retirement from a hugely influential broadcasting career launched in 1985.
During his decades on the air, Jones became a feared interviewer who excelled at questioning leaders while dividing audiences with his outspoken views.
He worked with Sydney radio station 2UE before joining rival 2GB, where he was a longtime ratings juggernaut until 2020.
Alongside a failed tilt at politics, he also coached the Australian national men’s rugby union team through some historic achievements between 1984 and 1988.
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